Bibliography Chambers Concise Dictionary (2009) Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd.
Pears, R. Shields, G. (2008) Cite them right. Durham: Pear Tree Books.
For further information please see:
How to write a bibliography—A Learning Resources Guide
Cite them write—Available in the LRC at shelf mark 808.02:PEA
And finally, please be aware the College has
plagiarism software that is used to detect suspected
copied work.
F:\GROUPS\LRC\USER EDUCATION\How to cite sources—Summer 2010
How to cite sources
- using the Harvard System
A
LEARNING RESOURCES SERVICE
GUIDE
F:\GROUPS\LRC\USER EDUCATION\How to cite sources—Summer 2010
First, some definitions -
Government Publications -
To CITE means formally recognising, within your text, the
resources from which you have obtained information.
In the body of the essay, you will need to include the
Country of publication, the government department
and the year of the publication, i.e.
The REFERENCE is the detailed description of the item from
which you have obtained your information.
The BIBLIOGRAPHY is the list of sources you have used.
Why do you need cite sources?
Whenever you write an essay, assignment or
project it is important that any time you use
someone else’s ideas, facts or information from
a book, article, web page or anywhere else, that
you acknowledge that work and provide a
reference to any material you have used. It also
allows anyone reading your work to check any
facts or arguments you have presented.
Always make sure that you record references to materials you
consult precisely, as you go along, before you return them to
the LRC! This will save you a lot of time and stress later when
you need to incorporate a reference you have used into your
bibliography.
F:\GROUPS\LRC\USER EDUCATION\How to cite sources—Summer 2010
Prison numbers increased last year (Great Britain, Ministry of
Justice, 2007)…
About plagiarism If you copy exactly or quote another person‟s words you must
put those words in quotation marks and credit the source of the
information i.e.
Plagiarism is to “copy (ideas, passages of text, etc.) from
someone else‟s work and use as if they were ones
own” (Chambers, 2009 p. 929)
By not citing an author's work you may be accused of plagiarism, which
is serious and may affect the marks you receive.
To avoid plagiarism, you must cite your sources whenever you use:
another person’s ideas, opinions or theories;
any specific facts, statistics, graphs or drawings, pictures
including Google images, from books, web pages, magazines or
elsewhere.
copy exactly or quote a person’s spoken or written word
paraphrase another person's written or spoken words by
using their ideas but putting them in your own words
Whenever you cite a source in the body of your work, DON‟T FORGET
TO INCLUDE THE SOURCE IN YOUR BIBLIOGRAPHY, AT THE
END OF YOUR ESSAY.
F:\GROUPS\LRC\USER EDUCATION\How to cite sources—Summer 2010
You could, however, mention the programme in the following way:
A recent television programme explained the concept of learned
helplessness. (Child of our Time, 2010)
Journals An article was written by Alan Clarke, entitled „Towards an
e-inclusive society‟, in Adults Learning, Volume 17, Issue 4, in
December 2005 on page 24.
This article would be cited in the text of your work as:
(Clarke, 2005, p.24)
You would reference it in your bibliography in the way you always reference journal articles.
For newspapers Cite in the same way as for journals.
Electronic sources including the Internet and VLEs In the body of the essay, refer to the author of the article accessed, or if
there is no specific author, the name of the website, for example
(Adams, 2010) or (TES, 2010)
If there is no author, insert the web address instead.
It would be referred to in your bibliography in the normal way you
reference electronic sources.
F:\GROUPS\LRC\USER EDUCATION\How to cite sources—Summer 2010
The bibliography will appear at the end of your work. It is evidence of
the books, journal articles and other sources you have used in your
research.
The first two elements of your reference, i.e. author and date, will
usually appear whenever you cite a work in the body of your essay or
assignment and are also usually the first two things you list for each
source in your bibliography. Thus anyone reading your work can move
easily between the text and the bibliography and trace a correct
reference.
There are a number of systems for citing material you have used in your
work but we recommend the Harvard citation system.
This system was developed in the USA and is now the most commonly
used citation system worldwide.
Harvard does not use footnotes in the main
text (which makes life easier for you); instead
all you need to do is insert the author’s
surname, year of publication and page number in round brackets at each point in the
text that refers to a particular document.
Books If the author’s name occurs naturally in the sentence, just put the year
and page number in brackets, i.e.
In a popular study Smith (2009, p.23) argues that …
Otherwise put both the name, year and page number in brackets at the
end of the sentence, i.e.
..the results of a recent study into the effects of smoking
on health support this argument. (Smith, 2009, p.23)
F:\GROUPS\LRC\USER EDUCATION\How to cite sources—Summer 2010
If the author has published more than one document in the same year
that you need to cite, add a, b, c, d etc. after the year, i.e.
And in the bibliography you would put Downing-Green, R (2000) …
If there are two authors -
Smith (2008a, p.28) concludes that….
When two or more authors have the same surname and have published
in the same year, initials should identify them in order to avoid confusion, i.e.
Smith, J (2008, p.31) discussed the important role care
workers can have while Smith, B (2008, p.68) supports
this argument by …
Give both names when citing in the text, i.e.
…Smith and Green (2009, p.21) describe …
In the bibliography, list both authors but list the work according to the
first author, i.e.
Smith, J and Green, B (2008)…
Treat corporate authors in the same way, i.e.
In a recent survey the Department of Health (2010, p.75)
showed that…
And in the bibliography you would put:
Department of Health, (2010, p.75)… etc.
What to do in more complicated cases -
If there are three or more authors Abbreviate the list of authors by using just the first author and et al both
in the body of your essay and in the bibliography, i.e.
…as argued by Smith et al (2008, p13)…
And in the bibliography Smith, J et al. (2008)…
For e-books -
If the author‟s surname is double barrelled with no hyphen -
Cite in the same way as for books.
Use both parts of the surname in the text and in the bibliography list the
work alphabetically according to the last part of the surname. E.g. if the
author’s name is J Wynn Smith in the text you would put
Audio Visual including Television Programmes, Films,
DVDs and Podcasts -
… as Wynn Smith (2009, p.2) argues ….
And in the bibliography you would put Smith, J Wynn (2009) …
If the author‟s surname is hyphenated You treat the surname as one word. i.e. in the text you would put
…as Downing-Green (2007, p.13) concludes…
F:\GROUPS\LRC\USER EDUCATION\How to cite sources—Summer 2010
Cite in the same way as for books.
To mention the programme/film quite naturally in the sentence, you
could write any of the following:
Child of our Time (2010) explained the concept of learned
helplessness.
F:\GROUPS\LRC\USER EDUCATION\How to cite sources—Summer 2010